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Constantly fidgeting/even breaking stuff-thoughts?


sbgrace
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My son is 15 with autism and ADHD dx.

He has a tendency to constantly fidget with stuff. He's not really thinking about what he's doing. It's more sensory or something in that realm I assume. 

He does this while concentrating, though fidgeting doesn't actually seem to help him concentrate. He does it while just walking around or, really, constantly. 

Sometimes he loses things--carries them wherever and then leaves them. Worse, he breaks things--for example, he was doing math today and absentmindedly picked up his dad's headphones. His fidgeting broke them.

In that past, when he was younger, we did fidget type things. But often they were distracting him more than helping, and he became resistant to fidgets as he got older anyway. 

I'm frustrated.  I worry this will follow him into the future at work and etc. I would so appreciate some thoughts. 

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We had someone in my house who did a lot of absent-minded fidgeting and relocating items mindlessly while pacing or trying to do tasks, but not the breaking. It required a motivation to stop (it was making people mad, he was losing things), lots of self-policing, and med changes. 

I am thinking you might need a behaviorist to help with that kind of thing. 

Are meds at a good place (if used)? 

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  • 2 years later...

I have one.  He isn't the one with ASD but he is profoundly gifted and likely has something.  Mostly it hasn't been a problem.  One thing we do is put fragile valuable things away.  When he was little I never left sharpies, scissors, knives or anything that could be used to mark furniture around - after the 3rd incident anyway :(.  

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 8/6/2022 at 5:16 AM, kiwik said:

One thing we do is put fragile valuable things away. 

My ds is old enough now that he has spending money from odd jobs (mowing for his aunt, etc.). When he destroys property he PAYS for the property. Doesn't help if he touches people (which is of course also an important issue), but at least it works for property. But mainly on that you look at what motivates them. My ds is very money aware, so money matters to him. He destroyed his kindle and had to pay for it, which was horrible, sigh. Hated that. He's finally listening to the OT about WHY he needs to have appropriate heavy work for his hands. His Babkin reflex re-emerged with puberty (along with some others) and the OT's thing, besides doing the integration exercises, is to recognize the roll of heavy work. She was talking with him about it today and it's like the lightbulb finally came on. And some heavy work is simple, like crawling on the floor to get pressure into your hands or doing pull ups. We need to move the pullup bar because he's gotten too tall for it in the doorway, hehe. 

So maybe try heavy work with his hands. Tearing paper, safe things to squeeze, leaning your bodyweight on your hands, etc. 

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